


Jack+Family

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Series: Advent Calendar Gift Fics [17]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Papa Jack, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 15:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: Family isn't always an easy thing. And in Jack's line of work, the time to ask forgiveness is never guaranteed.





	Jack+Family

“I’m spending Christmas with the Coltons this year.” Riley tosses a pair of jeans into her duffel. “Mama invited me.”

“That’s a little serious, don’t you think?” Jack asks. He’s not even sure he’s all that comfortable with Billy and Riley’s relationship, let alone something like this. The road trip was one thing. Going to their family Christmas is another. Riley and Billy spend time alone together every time they go on a date. But involving her in a family celebration like this… that feels like a long-term commitment thing. 

It’s not that he doesn’t want her to be happy. He does. He just wants to make sure she really will be happy with the person she ends up with. 

“He’s not gonna propose to me or anything!” Riley’s voice is sharp. Too sharp.

“I know. It’s just, you’ve been seeing him less than a year. And what he does for a living…” Jack can’t forget the way Billy said he had to distance himself from the mark.  _ If he’s capable of emotional distance from those people, he’s capable of hurting Riley with it too.  _ She doesn’t need another person to turn their back on her.

“It could be what  _ I  _ do, soon.” She looks up at him. “Their offer still stands. And I’m thinking about accepting. Working with Billy; it felt comfortable. I think I’d like it.”  _ That’s as good as accepting a proposal of marriage. Billy Colton’s gonna take her away from me.  _

“Have you thought this through?” Jack asks. “Leaving the Phoenix, leaving everyone here, that’s a big move. I just don’t want it to be a mistake.” 

“You don’t have to try and protect me from the world, Jack!” Riley shouts. “Stop treating me like a child! I’m not your little girl anymore!”

It feels like a slap in the face. 

Jack steps back, into the doorway, catching at the doorframe.  _ What have I done?  _ He was afraid of breaking her heart making her choose between him and Billy. But it turns out she broke his.

He thinks she might be about to say something, but then his phone rings. It’s Matty, they have a mission. Only him and Mac. He says a stiff goodbye to Riley and walks out, letting the pain hang in the air like the smoke from an explosion.

* * *

“This is your fault, Mac!” Jack shouts, and while there’s a bit of the teasing banter of normal missions, he knows the bitterness from what happened with Riley is bleeding through.

“How is it my fault?” Mac asks. 

“Because your distraction didn’t work, and now they’re all chasing us!”

“I don’t understand why it didn’t. I added everything to make the reaction, it should have gone off, it should have covered the noise we made at the gate.”

“Well, it didn’t! You messed up somewhere!” Jack shouts, and he can see the hurt on Mac’s face. He regrets saying it immediately, but nothing is going to change the fact that he just raised his voice in anger to this kid who sees him as a father. 

They duck down, behind a fallen tree covered with grubby undergrowth, and Jack tugs on Mac’s sleeve. He has to apologize to the kid, right now, because it is nowhere near Mac’s fault that Jack is having a bad day. 

And then he sees movement behind the trees to their left, and the small round shape of a thrown grenade. He doesn’t hesitate, just dives in front of Mac, shielding him from the explosion. 

There’s a blinding light, a searing heat, and a thousand tiny points of agony, and then Jack’s world goes black. 

* * *

The world comes back foggily, in bits and pieces. Jack dreams, and his dreams are full of strange, swirling memories he can’t quite grasp. He’s not even sure they are memories. He thinks the one where he wakes up in Texas isn’t right, because Mac isn’t there and he never left Mac after the Sandbox, right? That thought leads to a dozen others, and he sees the kid working alone, fighting alone, dying alone. Sees himself visiting the kid’s grave like he does his dad’s.

That’s not right. Mac is okay. He has to be. Jack threw himself in front of a grenade to save the kid. Mac is alive, he has to be. He’s talking, he’s saying thank you. He wouldn’t thank Jack if Jack left him to die. He must be alive. 

Those dreams slide away, and they’re replaced with Riley in a white dress, holding Jack’s hand and then Billy’s. He’s surprised that handing her over doesn’t feel like a betrayal. He cries, but he’s happy for her, because she’s happy. But then he hears her asking him to wake up, and he thinks he was awake, did he do the same dumb thing he laughed at videos of and pass out at his own daughter’s wedding?

And then the world starts to blur and fade and swim and shimmer, and there’s a bright light above him...is he dying? He blinks and the light becomes a strip of fluorescents. There are faces around him, Matty and Riley and Mac and Bozer. Riley and Mac are each holding one of his hands, holding on like he was falling over a cliff and they’ve been desperately pulling him back. 

Jack grins up at them, despite the fact that, now that he’s awake, the pain is returning. His back is on fire, and he wonders how long it’s going to take before sitting isn’t a literal pain in the ass. But his family is here, and it feels like everything is forgiven. He turns his head just enough that he can see, out the window, that wherever this hospital is, there’s a fresh blanket of snow on the ground. Starting fresh, everything old and dead and ugly covered up. 

He squeezes back on Mac and Riley’s hands, just enough to let them know he’s there. They can talk about what they need to later. For now, it’s enough that they’re going to have the chance. 


End file.
